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River Cities High

Wisconsin Rapids · WI · Wisconsin Rapids School District · Public

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🎓95% 4-yr grad rate

📋 At a glance

Programs & features
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 6% of US high schools
  • 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 18% by test-taker volume
  • 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 95% (75th percentile nationally)

Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

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How River Cities High compares for families

What families should know about River Cities High.

  • LocallyWI students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
  • vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Lincoln High, Assumption Catholic Schools, John Edwards High and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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SAT / ACT participation

CRDC federal data · 2020-21

Bottom 18% by test-taker volume

50th 90th
SAT/ACT test-takers
13
11th-12th graders who took 1+ college admissions test
Test-taking intensity
16.9
takers per 100 students in grades 9-12
Compared against
18,426
US high schools reporting SAT/ACT participation

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.

🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts

What % of students graduate on time?

75th percentile nationally

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
95%
Range: 90–100%
4-year cohort size
55
Students in the 9th-grade entry class tracked over 4 years
Compared against
17,988
US high schools reporting 4-year ACGR

Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.

👩‍🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC

Teacher experience & reliability

% inexperienced teachers (1st-2nd yr)
0%
Strong: experienced corps. New teachers rotate through but most have ≥3 years in.
% chronic teacher absence (≥10 days/yr)
60.0%
Elevated. Teacher absence directly affects classroom continuity and student outcomes.

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.

🏛️ Federal Title I context

Title I Schoolwide eligible

≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program

71.4%
FRPL rate — % of students who qualify for the federal Free or Reduced-Price Lunch program. This is the underlying federal income-eligibility signal Title I designations are computed from (ESEA Sec. 1113).
0% (no FRPL) 35% TA · 40% Schoolwide 100% (universal FRPL)

40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.

Chronic absenteeism

Share of students absent 15+ days
28.6%
Elevated above the national average (~16%). Worth understanding — chronic absence compounds into dropout risk, transfer-out risk, and revenue loss.
Students absent 15+ days
22
Federal definition: absent (excused or unexcused) for at least 15 of ~180 school days — about 10% of the school year.

Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.

Enrollment trend & projection

Grade 12 went from 71 in 2021 to 50 in 2024 — over 3 years.
-29.6%

Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of -7.1%/year, projecting from 2024's 77 students:

2025
72
2027
62
2029
53

A small or specialty program — naive trend math doesn't capture the school's full picture. Read the trend as directional, not predictive.

An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.

Nearby high schools — the local competition

The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.

SchoolTypeMilesHS enrollmentTrend
Lincoln High
Wisconsin Rapids
Public 1.9 1,337 -3.8%
Assumption Catholic Schools
Wisconsin Rapids
Private 3.0 392 +308.3%
John Edwards High
Port Edwards
Public 5.0 144 +13.4%
Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran School
Wisconsin Rapids
Private 5.6 128
Nekoosa High
Nekoosa
Public 8.3 285 -7.5%
Nekoosa Academy
Nekoosa
Public 8.3 23
WISE Academy
Nekoosa
Public · charter 8.6 31
Charles F Fernandez Center Alt Learning
Stevens Point
Public 12.7 77 -4.9%

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